


The Biggest Most Fucked Up Jigsaw Puzzle In The History Of The Universe

by scarlet_malfoy



Category: True Detective
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-08
Updated: 2014-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 14:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2584148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarlet_malfoy/pseuds/scarlet_malfoy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for this lovely prompt over on truedetectiveprompts.tumblr.com. </p><p>"2002. Marty sees Rust one more time after the fight and before the move to Alaska, but only the two of them ever know about it."</p><p>This was totally going to have some porn in it, but then it ended up being a little darker and more conversation-based than I expected, plus both of them are sick at some point in the story, so it didn't end up happening. :( Sorry!</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Biggest Most Fucked Up Jigsaw Puzzle In The History Of The Universe

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackeyedblonde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/gifts).



The elevator doors slide open, about ten paces slower than Marty’s thoughts are racing. His eyes are wide and he stares straight ahead down the hospital hall, more cautious then ever, even though it’s been years since Maggie worked here.  _Never gonna see her again, probably. Never--_  
  
A nurse pushes past him, throwing him an annoyed look over her shoulder as she goes. Marty squares his shoulders and takes a deep breath in, then out. Another in, then out. He puts his hand over the elevator door so it won’t close him in, though it’s more to ground himself and quit the fucking quivering he can feel starting up in all his limbs.  
  
The week he’s been living through reminds him of the last time Maggie almost left him, and when he finally steps out of the elevator and into the same overbright hospital wing where they fought seven years ago, he isn’t sure what year it is anymore.  
  
Some doctor had called him that morning, early. He’d cursed the ringing in his head and thought about not answering, but he couldn’t be sure it wasn’t Maggie or one of the girls.  
  
His head was pounding. The little garbage can next to the desk in the hotel room was filled to the brim with bottles. He wasn’t positive he wouldn’t hurl after saying hello, but he picked up the phone, anyway.  
  
Motherfucking  _Rustin Spencer Cohle_  (the doctor had actually used his full name) had been taken to the emergency room the night before, apparently. Drank so much he needed to have his stomach pumped. Guy his age, doctors were concerned, more concerned than if he’d been some college student.  
  
And Marty was the only person listed on his emergency contact list.  
  
After he hung up the phone, Marty had laughed and laughed. Laughed until tears were running down his face, and then he _did_  hurl, barely making it to the toilet in time.  
  
One shower, three cups of coffee, and several hours later, Marty’s standing outside of Rust’s hospital room for whatever fucking reason. The door’s slightly ajar, and he has his hand raised to knock, but then he swears and decides Rust can stand to be surprised by something Marty does, for once. He brings his hand down and pushes on into the room. 

Rust is asleep. He looks terrible with his face still all bruised up from their fight, and Marty’s own injuries twinge in some kind of response. He swallows down any guilt that billows up in him, because why in the fuck should he feel any guilt?  
  
 _People incapable of guilt usually do have a good time._  
  
Marty’s lost in a memory of a five minute stop for Banh Mi, and almost doesn’t notice when Rust opens his eyes.  
  
At first Rust looks right through him, like he sees him but doesn’t see him at the same time. He turns his head away to look toward the window, instead, but the blinds are shuttered closed and there’s nothing to see. He looks back at Marty then, and his eyes widen just so slightly in surprise.  
  
“Marty?” Rust’s voice is raspy, like he hasn’t talked in days. Might’ve been the truth, too.   
  
Marty snorts. “You forget what my face looks like already? Been what, a week since you took your best shot at it?”  
  
Immediately it’s like a shade’s been drawn over Rust’s features. He sits up in bed and swallows hard, his eyes glossing over in some protective kind of reflex. Looks like he’s trying not to be sick.  
  
Marty takes a step forward, and doesn’t think he imagines it when Rust pushes back into the pillows at the same time. His right eyebrow arches up into his hairline. “What, did you think I was one one of your visions, or something?”  
  
Rust closes his eyes, clears his throat. “All I been seeing, man.”  
  
“What, me?”  
  
It’s like he blinks with his eyes closed. “All kinds of things.”  
  
“Oh.” Marty doesn’t know what to say. He rolls a cushioned chair over to the side of Rust’s bed, one of those armchair types that can become the most uncomfortable recliner ever invented, meant for visitors to spend the night in. He perches on the edge of it.  
  
“The fuck are you doing here?” Rust speaks before opening his eyes, watching Marty through his lashes without ever moving his head. Come to think of it, Rust’s whole body looks to be cemented in place, the veins in his arm standing out like ridges under the unusual paleness of his skin. He’s tense as fuck. Marty notices a couple of bruising needle pricks in the crook of his elbow and swallows, hard.  
  
“I could ask you the same thing.” Marty glances at the bruising, then back up at Rust. The man manages to pull the sheet up higher in one swift movement, barely moving his arms. “You got me on your call list still. Why is that?”  
  
Rust shrugs. “Thought you might get a real good belly laugh if I died from alcohol poisoning, Marty.” His voices drips with over-accented sarcasm, and Marty frowns.  
  
“Shut the fuck up, Rust, I didn’t even know you _had_  me on your list to begin with.” Marty racks his brain, but no, of course there’s nobody else he can think of Rust could have put on the list. Not one person.  
  
Bits of guilt colored ochre rise up in him again, but he doesn’t swallow it down this time. He can barely swallow around it.  
  
“Was this on purpose, man? I mean… what were you thinking?” Marty’s voice is uncharacteristically soft. Given the anger that’d taken up residence in his blood this past week, he can scarcely believe he’s capable of any softness now.  
  
Rust shakes his head, closing his eyes again. “No. I wasn’t thinking. No point I could see to thinking. But thoughts kept coming, anyway…”  
  
“No need to fill me in. I’ve heard seven years worth of your bullshit philosophy type thoughts, more than enough for a lifetime, thanks.”  
  
A corner of Rust’s mouth quirks upward in the barest hint of a smile, or maybe just vague amusement. It’s gone instantly, but the satisfaction that rears its head in Marty’s stomach holds fast.  
  
“Would you vouch for me, Marty?”  
  
Marty is confused, but he’s saved from wondering too hard when Rust is suddenly turning his head to look hard at him. There’s a fierce, determined kind of fire behind his eyes that Marty can’t remember seeing in years and years, not since shit went down in ’95. Rust hadn’t exactly softened in the interim, but he’d been more equatable to other human beings, more the kind of person Marty could relate to, at least a portion of the time. This animalistic rawness was what Marty thought of as Old Rust, but now it seemed obvious that he’d just been hibernating.  
  
“If you talk to the doctors, explain it away somehow, they’ll release me. I was planning on going back to Alaska next week, getting a job on a fishing boat up there with my cousin. Then I’ll be out of your life and out of your way forever. Figures it works out in your favor, too.” Rust’s eyebrows cinch together tight and he looks away. Marty gapes, speechless for a minute, then he clears his throat.  
  
“I’ll do it, Rust, but you gotta know that shit’s already fucked between me and Maggie, bout as much as it can be. Had been fucked even before you both decided to fuck. Ha!” Marty sits back in the chair, muscles in his hand up on the armrest clenching over and over again. He wishes he had a hard-liquored drink nearby he could guzzle down, forget this conversation was even happening. “It’s not a requirement that you get on out of town. I’m pretty sure I remember you mentioning more than one time how much you hated it up there. All that cold and shit.”   
  
Marty pauses, shaking his head. “This gonna happen again up there?”  
  
Rust sits up in bed, grimacing as he pulls the sheet away from his arm. “I wasn’t doing any drugs. This is from the nurse trying hard as hell to get the IV in. Not something that’s easy to do in this arm, these days.”  
  
Marty waves his hands in front of his face, as if waving away the very idea. “I didn’t think--”  
  
“Oh, yes you did, Marty. You can’t lie to me.”  
  
Marty snorts. “I guess I can’t. But I didn’t jump right to the conclusion of you shooting your arm up. Jumping to conclusions is what _you_  do, remember. I wait for the evidence to come rolling in. Always have.”  
  
Rust rolls his eyes. “You sure jump to conclusions when you’re angry enough.”  
  
His eyes narrow, and he just barely manages to keep from raising his voice. “Called my cards, Rust. Congratulations.” Marty leans forward, elbows on his knees. “But tell me, was I wrong? Is there something I truly don’t understand about the fact of my ex-partner and my almost ex-wife fucking each other?”  
  
Rust doesn’t say anything, so Marty goes on. “And why the fuck are _you_  the one going off the deep end about it? You haven’t overdone it like this in years, man, I mean seriously.”  
  
“What did Maggie say?” Rust doesn’t exactly look away, but doesn’t exactly look anywhere near him, either.  
  
“Not that it’s _any_  of your goddamn business, but as parts of it concern you, sure, I’ll clue you in. Apparently you were drunk off your ass, buried up to your neck in pictures of dead people regarding who knows what case we’ve long since closed. I didn’t know you were still doing that to yourself. I don’t know why you didn’t move to some nicer place after Laurie.”  
  
“Stick to the relevant facts, please.”  
  
Marty leans back and points at Rust. “ _You_ don’t get to call the shots. It’s all relevant, somehow. It all fits together like the biggest most fucked up jigsaw puzzle in the history of universe.”  
  
Rust laughs, harsh and short. It takes Marty by surprise, throws him off track. He can’t even remember where he was going with it at all.  
  
“Why did you come here when they called, Marty? Really.”  
  
“Maybe I just wanted you to know how fucking _pissed_  I am. In one swift motion the two of you took yourselves out of my life. I don’t even know who to talk to anymore. You’re both just gone, and it sure seems like you each did it on purpose. Fuck you, man. Goddamn.” Marty blinks, looking off to the side, rearranging his sitting position and accidentally rocking the armchair ever so slightly, jump-starting all his nerves at once.  “Fuck this chair.” He stands abruptly, walks over to the window on the other side of Rust’s bed, hands on his hips as he stares at the closed blinds. “Fuck it all.”  
  
Rust sighs, his breath turning shaky at the end, and Marty cannot bring himself to turn around, not until Rust speaks.  
  
“I’m not okay, Marty.”  
  
“Yeah, that much is clear.” Marty turns and watches Rust shifting around, all uncomfortable under his gaze, eyes oddly red-rimmed. “Why’d you even do it? What was going through your head, man?”  
  
“Fire. Fear.” Rust swallows, heavy. “Swimming through the alcohol. Hadn’t talked to anyone in days, all holed up in my apartment. Maggie knew all about your girl. Was just listening to her. I always tried to listen to her, Marty, she was the only one who ever listened to me with clear and open eyes. It was—it was so stupid, Marty. I was weak. I was stupid.” Rust sags down in bed, seemingly losing steam. He looks a little green, and Marty picks the small garbage can up from the floor and hands it to him. Rust nods, closing his eyes again. “Thanks.”  
  
“She did it so she could have ammunition against me. She told me that.” Marty sighs, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. “Guess she was right in figuring there wasn’t a quicker way to get me to sign the papers. But why’d it have to be you, man? I could almost understand every other thing about this.”  
  
“She told me that, too,” Rust says, quieter now. “Immediately after. Like a trance or something I’d been under, then suddenly I wasn’t, and I realized—I realized what it meant. I fucking screamed at her to leave. I think I scared the fucking shit out of her.”  
  
Marty watches him, blood broiling beneath his veins at the visuals, but curious at Rust’s words in spite of it all. “Just what exactly did you realize?”  
  
Rust’s eyes peep open and he sits up slow, cautious, setting the garbage can at his side. He puts his arm around it, looking Marty up and down like he’s sizing him up, reading him. For the life of him Marty finds himself standing up a little straighter under the scrutiny.  
  
“I realized that I’d spent seven years accidentally cultivating something like a friendship with my partner, and that instantly after too much whiskey and one bad decision, I was once again alone in a universe of my own making.” Rust looks away, then. “You can go, Marty. I’ll be fine.”  
  
“No, no,  _no_ , man, that can’t be it. That can’t be all you have to say about it.”  
  
“What else can I possibly say? You want me to beg for forgiveness or something?”  
  
Marty sighs. “Might be nice.”  
  
“I am sorry, Marty. I’m gonna be paying for it for a long time.”  
  
“Way I see it, Rust, or at least the way it seems to me, you’re addicted to fucking yourself over, and blaming yourself. For lots of things. Things I won’t mention. Things _you_  won’t mention. You aren’t the only observant asshole in Louisiana.” Marty sits down in the armchair again, setting his feet down in front of him like anchors. “I can barely stand to look at you right now with what I know, images dancing in my head like fucked up sugar plums, but it ain’t always gonna be that way.”  
  
Rust just looks at him, looking scared, looking young.  
  
“Go on to Alaska for a while if you need to, I think we both need the time away, but I don’t blame you nearly as much as her, Rust.” Marty’s face colors a bit. “Or as much as I blame me.”  
  
“Marty…”  
  
“No, it’s true. I’m a dick and you’re an asshole, but I know how docile-like you get when you’ve really had too much to drink. Not an excuse, but dammit, man, I know what that woman’s like when she’s mad, too. Manipulative as hell. Can’t blame her none.” Marty sniffs. “Look, we’ve all got some blame and some innocence, but what I’m really trying to say here is, don’t write yourself off. I haven’t. Okay? I don’t wanna be up nights worrying about you up there.”  
  
“Marty, I’m sorry… I appreciate it, but I’m gonna throw up.” Rust’s words are clipped and short, and he’s sitting up to lean over the garbage can.  
  
Marty stands. “I’ll just go use your bathroom real quick. Grab you a towel.”  
  
As he shuts the bathroom door behind himself, he turns the water on to the sound of Rust’s retching, and stares at himself in the wide-length mirror.  
  
Despite it all, despite how many times he’s cursed Rust in the last week, a part of him is heavily disappointed to hear that Rust’s leaving town. Seven years is a long time to see somebody five, sometimes six days a week. The shit they’ve seen together, the things they’ve done, makes it feel like even longer.   
  
He hasn’t forgiven Rust, but he doesn’t think it will take all that long. Marty is surprised at how true that is. How much easier it is to get behind Rust’s explanation of the situation over Maggie’s. And maybe it’s because he’s known the man long enough that he’s able to understand some marginal parts of him, which he knows is a hell of a lot more than anybody else.  
  
At any rate, it’s a hell of a lot more than he’s ever been able to understand Maggie after all their years of marriage.  
  
Marty realizes that nothing’s ever come as natural to him as solving crimes by Rust Cohle’s side, and he splashes some cold water on his face.  
  
The nurse that pushed past him on the elevator is there when he comes back into the room, changing the bag in the garbage can and checking the levels on Rust’s IV. She glares at him when he sits down in the armchair and waves a greeting at her.  
  
She promptly ignores him and turns to leave. “Just buzz if you need anything else, Mr. Cohle.”  
  
“Will do. Thanks.” Rust clears his throat, massaging the skin at his temples in deep circles. “Sorry about that, Marty.”  
  
“Nah, don’t worry about it.”  
  
A brief silence falls between them, and Marty says the first thing that comes to mind. “I’ve been thinking about starting up my own firm in a couple of years. Maybe three or four, I’ll see how things go with this new guy they’re setting me up with.”  
  
Rust’s eyes turn on him like laser beams.  
  
Marty finds himself grinning. “Jealous?”  
  
“Not exactly. Just didn’t think they’d have someone ready on hand so quick. Hasn’t been all that long.”  
  
“Sure, sure. There won’t be any replacing you though, Rust, honestly. I mean that. That’s why I’d like to extend to you an offer. I’d want you at my firm, once I start it up. Open offer, whenever you feel like coming back.”  
  
Rust raises one eyebrow. “What if I don’t come back?”  
  
“Well, I ain’t moving to Alaska, so if you don’t come back, I guess I gotta put out the feelers for some real thinkers like you. Whoever I get’ll be second best, hands down, so I sure hope you do.”  
  
“Marty, jesus christ. Why are you saying all this shit to me?”  
  
Marty sighs. “Maybe because I _am_  actually worried about you. And hearing that I’m part of the reason you drank beyond your means… I don’t want you thinking I hate your stinking guts. I mean, I do, but not for what you might think, or any real serious reason. Fuck, this whole thing just got real weird.”  
  
“That tends to happen around me.”  
  
“Yeah. Well. Listen, you going up to your dad’s place? Same address?”  
  
Rust nods.  
  
“All right. I’ll go talk to your doctors, and drop you a line with my new address once I get settled in a place of my own. So you can drop the drama queen act. You ain’t rid of me yet. My career would be over twice as quick if you were, and I’m no dummy.” Marty stands, edging backward toward the door.  
  
“Marty,” Rust says. “Thanks, man. I… really. I don’t deserve the kindness.”  
  
“Yeah, you fucking do.” Marty flicks him off, keeping his hand up and watching him until he’s out the door.  
  
Rust smiles, putting both arms around the little garbage can as he eventually drifts back to sleep.  
  
When he wakes several hours later, he isn’t positive the whole encounter wasn’t all a dream.  
  



End file.
